'Painful Episode'
At the U.N.

By

Jones Hayden The Wall Street Journal Online

Updated Feb. 4, 2005 6:50 a.m. ET

A "grave and continuing conflict of interest" that "seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations" -- so concludes an interim report into allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program.

In the first findings from a commission appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the $64 billion oil-for-food program, the panel used those words to describe the conduct of Benon Sevan, who ran the program from 1997 until its demise in 2003, the New York Times...